Introduction (A. W. Hutton)

SCOPE OF THE PRESENT PUBLICATION

TN this volume are contained the thirty-seven Sermons of John Tauler, which form the Third Part of the complete editions published at Frankfort in 1826 and at Prague (ed. Hamberger) in 1872. These are the Sermons for Festivals (de sanctis), while the First and Second Parts contain the Sermons for the Christian Year (de tempore) ; the total number being 145. Should this volume of the Festal Sermons meet with a favourable reception, the Sermons for the Christian Year may follow in two or three volumes. Up to the present time only twenty-seven of Tauler's sermons have appeared in English, these being contained in Miss Susanna Winkworth's well - known but now scarce volume, to which Charles Kingsley contributed a preface.1 Of the thirty-seven Festal Sermons Miss Winkworth translated only three (nos. 4, 12, and 31 in the present

1 "The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg ; with Twenty-five of his Sermons (temp. 1340) translated from the German with additional Notices of Tauler's Life and Times, by Susanna Winkworth." London. 1857.

ix x INTRODUCTION volume) so that thirty-four of those now pre sented to the reader appear here for the first time in English. The Sermons for the Christian Year were translated into French by M. Charles Sainte-Foi, and were published in Paris in 1855 ; but he did not include the Sermons de sanctts. They are to be found, however, together with all else that is rightly or wrongly ascribed to Tauler, in the Latin version, or rather para phrase, by Laurentius Surius, a Carthusian,1 which was based on the Cologne German edition of 1 543, and which was reprinted at least twelve times before the end of the seventeenth century, while it was also translated into Italian, French and Dutch.

Until the appearance of Hamberger's edition (Prague, 1872), the standard German edition of the Sermons was that published at Frankfort, in 1826, without an editor's name. This was used by Miss Winkworth, and also by M. Sainte-Foi ; and it forms the basis of the present publication, as I have only been able to refer to Hamberger's edition in the British Museum. In the anonymous Introduction are indicated the MSS. sources on which the earlier standard German editions (Leipzig, 1498; Augsburg, 1508; Basle, 1521; Hal-

1 D. Joannis Thauleri przclarissimi viri sublimisque rheologi tarn de tempore quam de sanctis conciones plane piissimse . . . caeteraque opera omnia . . . nunc primum ex Germanico idiomate in Latinum transiusa sermonem, interprete Laurentio Surio, Lubecensi, Carthusiz Coloniensis alumno. Colonia-, 1548.

INTRODUCTION xi berstadt, 1523; Cologne, 1543; Frankfort, 1565; Amsterdam, 1588; Antwerp, 1593; and Hamburg, 1621) were based. The original Leipzig edition (1498) was printed from MSS. at Strasburg, said to be contemporary with Tauler, and to have been corrected by him. The eighty-four sermons in this edition may therefore be reckoned as authentic, with the exception of four, which are known to have been Eckhart's. To the Basle edition of 1521 forty-two sermons were added, the editor, John Rymann, saying of them that "they have been more recently discovered and collected with great care and diligence. Although there may be a doubt about some of them, let not that offend thee ; for it is certain that they have been written by a right learned man of that age, and are all based on one foundation, namely, true self-surrender and the preparation of the spirit for God." Some of these are probably to be ascribed to Eckhart, Suso or Ruysbroek. Such of them as are found in this volume are distinguished by the mark f in the Table of Contents. Of this Basle edition it should be noted that it was issued in the interests of the Reformation ; and the article on Tauler in the new edition of the Kirchenlexicon (1899) seems to ignore these forty-two additional sermons altogether, and to admit as authentic only five of those added to the Cologne edition presently to be referred to. Something is said below as to the sense in which alone Tauler can be described as " a Reformer before the Reformation " ; but xii INTRODUCTION it may be convenient here to note that Luther, who in 1517 put forth an edition of the Theo-logia Germanica^ the work of one of Tauler' s contemporaries, had in the previous year written to Spalatin a commendation of Tauler's sermons, of which, as a recognition of their Protestant tendency, too much has certainly been made. The fact that the words were written when Luther was still Prior of Wittenberg, and before there was any breach with Rome, should have sufficed to secure them from such misinterpretation.1 Finally, to the Cologne edition of 1543 (the standard for all subsequent ones) Petrus Noviomagus, the editor, added twenty -five sermons more, which he had found chiefly in the library of St Gertrude's Convent in Cologne ; and the authenticity of these is in a general way supported, both by internal evidence, and by the fact that to the nuns at St Gertrude's Tauler

1 Luther's commendation is as follows: — "Si te dilectat puram, solidam, antiquz simillimam theologiam legere in Germanica lingua efFusam, sermones Johannis Tauleri. prsdicatoriae professionis, tibi comparare potes, cujus totius velut epitomen ecce hie tibi mitto. Neque enim in Latina neque in nostra lingua theologiam vidi salubriorem et cum Evangelic consonantiorem." On this Weiss, in the Biographie uni- •uerselle (edition of 1826) comments as follows: — " Les eloges donnes a ses \l.e. Tauler's] ouvrages par Luther, Melanchthon, et la plupart des chefs de la reforme religieuse, avaient fait soup<jonner la purete des principes de Tauler ; mais d'illustres ecrivains catholiques ont pris soin de justifier sa memoire ; et Bossuet dit (a Instruction sur les etats d'oraison ") qu'il le regarde comme un des plus solides et des plus corrects des mystiques."

INTRODUCTION xiii frequently preached. Of the Festal Sermons contained in this volume, eighteen are to be found in the original Leipzig edition, fifteen form part of the Basle supplement, and four are of those that were added to the Cologne edition. Miss Winkworth, selecting from the whole number of 145 sermons, took eleven from the original edition, eleven from the Basle supplement, and five from the Cologne ^supplement. Of the Festal Sermons she selected only three, her principle of selection being rather edification than authenticity.

But, on the general question of authenticity, it must be confessed that not one of the 145 sermons can claim such as it would have possessed had it been written by Tauler's own hand and been put forth by him as repre senting what he said or desired to say on the occasion. His sermons were always spoken ; and the MSS. are at best only the reports of those who heard him ; and such reports, it is hardly necessary to say, do not reproduce the sermons as they actually were delivered ; though the way in which the sermons have thus come down to us explains the differences of reading in various editions and also the obscurity of certain passages. A critical edition of Tauler's Sermons by a competent hand is doubtless a thing to be desired ; but it would be a misfortune, from the point of view of edification, if, in such an edition, matter otherwise admirable found no place, on account of the uncertainty of its authorship.

xiv INTRODUCTION

The scope of Miss Winkworth's edition of Tauler's Sermons differed from that of the present publication. She had learnt to admire them by hearing some of them read in German Protestant households as a part of domestic worship ; and her idea was to introduce a previously unknown preacher to an English audience, compiling " a volume of sermons for the Sundays and Holy-days of the year, such as any head of a family might read to his household, or any district visitor among the poor/' But as she was very properly anxious to publish in their entirety such sermons as she selected, she felt compelled to omit such as, either in whole or in part, were "too much imbued with references to the Romish ritual and discipline to be suitable for the Protestant common people." I cannot say that any of the sermons strike me as particularly suitable for such a purpose. They contain, indeed, many thoughts that have become pulpit commonplaces since Tauler's day, and other thoughts that might very well acquire such acceptance ; but for such a use as Miss Winkworth contemplated, the sermons need more than mere translation. Their spirit must first be made his own by any man who is to expound it profitably ; and this he then must do in his own language. My idea has therefore rather been to present these sermons of Tauler's in such a form as may aid towards a more accurate historical appreciation of the man and his teaching. I have had no thought of either pruning or adapting his words. He was a

INTRODUCTION xv

Dominican friar of the fourteenth century, and he held all the beliefs of his age and of his Church without any trace of reserve. The ardour of his Marian devotion is especially noticeable ; and it would be as improper to omit this or to tone it down in a translation, as it would be to correct any other illustrations of his beliefs and practices, crude and almost grotesque as some of them undoubtedly are.1 Indeed, in order to preserve throughout the impression of a Catholic preacher addressing a Catholic congregation, I have even gone out of my way to give the English translation of the Scripture texts from the Douai version ; since, though that did not exist in Tauler's day any more than our own Authorised Version, it is a faithful translation from the Vulgate, which Tauler used in the pulpit, translating it into German for the benefit of his hearers. Such at least has been my intention ; though, from inadvertence and a greater familiarity with King James' version, I may not have adhered to it throughout. To the

1 With reference to the singularly detailed account of the way in which the Blessed Virgin occupied her time, given by Tauler in the Sermon here numbered vii., the Rev. Andrew Burn, rector of Kynnersley, Salop, has called my attention to similar language in the Gnomes of the Nicene Synod, quoted by Professor Achelis (Journal of Theological Studies, II., 128) which certainly suggests that the two have a common source in traditions contained in some now lost Apocryphal Gospel. The Gnomes are at present only available in two Coptic MSS. ; the supposed date of the treatise is c. 400.

xvi INTRODUCTION lady, by her own desire anonymous, to whose patient labour the bulk of the translation of the Sermons is due, I desire here to record my most sincere thanks. Tauler's sentences are some times obscure because they are so long ; and that obscurity the translator has in many cases suc ceeded in removing by breaking up a sentence into two or more ; but it has not been found possible to remove in all cases the obscurity of the original. (See, at the end of this Introduction, an illustration of the methods used by some earlier translators of Tauler. ) The version here presented will, however, be found as a whole, readable and easy ; and it should serve to render more familiar one of the most notable figures in the history of the Christian Church ; one whose teaching shows how essential is the unity that underlies a spiritual conception of the Christian Creed, however much its exponents may differ as to matters of form.

A word must be said in explanation of the title, " The Inner Way," which the present volume bears. It is used merely by way of convenience, at the urgent request of the publishers. For myself, I had thought that " Tauler's Festal Sermons " would have amply sufficed to identify the contents of the volume for all those whom it is likely to interest ; and that any additional title might even cause perplexity, especially to those who know that all the spiritual works, except the sermons, once attri buted to Tauler, are now generally regarded as unauthentic. But it appears that, in bookselling regarded as a business, the word " Sermons "

INTRODUCTION xvii bears a fatal significance, and must be avoided at any cost. Thus urged, I have selected a title which marks the general character of Tauler's teaching, and which will not, I trust, give rise to any misconception as to what the volume professes to be.

SOME NOTES ON TAULER'S LIFE

The historical criticism of the nineteenth century did not leave Tauler undisturbed. When Miss Winkworth published her " History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler " in 1857, no one had questioned, save on grounds of religious sentiment, that he was the " Master in Holy Scripture " who was converted by the " Friend of God from the Oberland," as is narrated in that quaint and edifying legend. The story in question had, in fact, been printed in every edition of Tauler's Sermons, and was regarded as an authentic and almost contemporary document. Quetif and Echard, in their Scriptures Or dims Pmdicatorum, had suggested, early in the eighteenth century, that the legend should be regarded as an allegory ; 1 and this view was supported by Weiss, in his article on Tauler in the Biographic universelle (1826] already referred to.2 But it was reserved to H. S.

1Tom I. p. 677. Paris, 1719.

'2 " On ne doit peut-etre voir dans ce recit qu'une allegoric sur la necessite de veiller sans cesse sur soimeme et de combattre ses penchants."

xviii INTRODUCTION

Denifle, a learned Dominican of our own day, to point out that the story, as applied to Tauler, involves grave historical difficulties, and is barely reconcilable with certain matters of ascertained fact.1 His criticisms would seem to have settled the question ; but to him Preger, a Protestant, whose life has been largely devoted to the study of the German mystics, and who was selected to be the biographer of Tauler in the " Universal German Biography," has made a detailed reply, in the third volume of his Deutsche Mystik (1893); and many will hold that he has succeeded in rebuilding the edifice which Denifle was thought to have destroyed. The Jatter's criticisms are however ably reinforced in the article on Tauler by Von Loe, also a Dominican, in the eleventh volume (1899) of the new edition of the Kirchenlexicon ; and it would be impossible for anyone who had not made a prolonged and independent study of the question to decide between the disputants.

Moreover, the controversy is mixed up with a further question, as to whether Tauler did or did not submit to the Papal interdict, under which Strasburg (and other cities that espoused the cause of the Emperor Louis the Bavarian) lay for many years after 1329. The evidence certainly seems to point to the conclusion that Tauler, and the Dominican house at Strasburg,

1 See his article in the Hist, Pol. Blatter, Ixxv., 18 iq. (1875), and Tauler's Bekehrung kritisch untersucht, forming Pt. 36 of Quellen und Forschiinpen zitr Strack vnd Culturgeschichte der Germanischen Volker (Strasburg, 1879).

INTRODUCTION xix did submit. But Preger holds it as proved that a certain Merswin, a layman who had withdrawn from a distinguished civic position and led a penitential life as one of the " Friends of God," received the sacraments from Tauler during the interdict. Specklin, however, the Strasburg chronicler, on whom Preger relies for this assertion, also says that Tauler wrote a book (or two books) in which he protested against people being allowed to die without the sacraments during the interdict, and in obedience to it ; and that his book was condemned as heretical. To this his Catholic apologists reply that such a thing was impossible, since such administration of the sacra ments during an interdict was not prohibited by the ecclesiastical law at that date. It is a pity that so admirable a legend should have proved the occasion for so keen a controversy.

Proceeding now to sketch the undisputed facts of Tauler' s life, we note that he was born at Strasburg, about the year 1300, of a respect able citizen family, dwelling in a house " near the Miller's Bridge." At an early age (Preger says at fifteen) he entered the Dominican convent at Strasburg as a novice ; and he was through life a brother of that "Order of Preachers," known in England as the " Black Friars." He passed the two years of his novitiate and the eight years of his preliminary study in his native city ; and then, as a brother of much promise, he was sent to the Studium Gcncrale at Cologne for a further period of four years. It xx INTRODUCTION is interesting to note that, during those early years at Strasburg, the nave of the Cathedral, as we now see it, was fresh and white from the mason's chisel, while the great western facade was in process of erection. There he would have heard the sermons of his master, Eckhart, usually reckoned the most intellectual of the German mystics and the founder of German philosophy. He would have heard him again at Cologne, where Eckhart had the misfortune to be accused of Pantheism, but was acquitted after trial by the Inquisition. At Strasburg Tauler would also have known the mystic, John of Sternengassen, and the theologian, John of Dambach ; and he would have studied the authors he most frequently quotes, Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, Hugo and Richard of St Victor, Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus. Logic, Scripture, and the Sentences of Peter Lombard formed part of the regular curriculum of his preliminary training ; and it is supposed that, when he proceeded to Cologne at the age of twenty-five, he had already been ordained priest, and had definitely adopted that mystical standpoint in religion by which he will always be distinguished.

At this date the Dominican order occupied a position similar to that of the Jesuits two or three centuries later. It was the nursery of great preachers and theologians, and royal con fessors were usually chosen from it. At Cologne Tauler would come to know several of the more learned men of his order ; and it was there that

INTRODUCTION xxi his training was probably completed. From a passage in one of his sermons : l it has been inferred that he proceeded to Paris ; but there is no certain trace of him in the Acta of that University ; and it is more likely that he re turned direct from Cologne to Strasburg. Neither is there any evidence that at Cologne he took the degree of " Master in Holy Scripture," (a degree equivalent to that of " Doctor in Theology"); and this he could only have done either at Paris or Cologne. In all the MSS. previous to the fifteenth century he is described simply as " Brother John Tauler " ; and this is evidence against his being the anonymous *' Master in Holy Scripture " whom the lay " Friend of God " converted. Only in virtue of that identification has he been described as « Dr John Tauler."

He would have returned to Strasburg about the year 1329, when the city was laid under an interdict by John XXII. The validity of the interdict was disputed among the city clergy, great pressure being put upon them by the municipal authorities not to observe it. Even among the regulars (Dominicans and Franciscans) there was a party that contended for its non-observance. The General Chapter of the Dominicans admitted its validity ; but, according to Preger, not all the German houses — there were about 100 — accepted the decision. The Strasburg convent, he maintains, did not submit to it until 1339; and the friars were thereupon expelled 1 See p. 316.

xxii INTRODUCTION for three years by the City Council. But before this date Tauler appears to have been sent to Basle, where, though the city was imperialist, the clergy were not called upon by the civil authorities to defy the interdict, and where, moreover, the Pope relaxed its observance from time to time. Here Tauler made a consider able stay, and presumably delivered some, at least, of those sermons which were included in the Basle edition of 1521. Here, too, he met Henry of Nordlingen, a secular priest who had come to Basle from Constance for the same reason that Tauler had come there from Strasburg. He was a man of much piety and influence, and he numbered many regulars among his spiritual children, one of them being Margaret Ebner, a Dominican nun and an ecstatica, with whom Tauler had later some correspondence, now lost.1 He returned to Strasburg not much later than 1346 ; and it was in the years following that his sermons there attracted general

1 Margaret Ebner believed that in her ecstasies she received special revelations about our Lord's life and especially about His childhood. She followed with the deepest attention the strife between the Pope and the Emperor Louis, having great loyalty and affection for the latter, as her own countryman. In 1346, Clement VI. renewed the excommunication of Louis — Dei ira in hoc et infuturo saculo cxardescat in if sum — and in the year following the Emperor died suddenly out hunting. But, none the less, Margaret (who died in 1351, aged sixty) believed that in one of her visions the Child Jesus assured her of his predestination to eternal life. Her diary and her correspondence with Henry of Nord lingen were edited by Strauch in 1881.

INTRODUCTION xxiii attention and admiration. In 1357 he again visited Cologne, and addressed a series of dis courses to the nuns at St Gertrude's in that city. Some of these were presumably the originals of the sermons added to the Cologne edition of 1543. Four years later he died in Strasburg (the date on ^his tomb is June 16, 1361), and was buried in the convent of his order. He had died, however, outside the convent, in the guest-house of an adjoining nunnery, over which his sister presided. A manuscript at Colmar, giving an account of Tauler by one who had known him personally, describes him as " a gifted and holy Friend of God " ; but adds that he was detained six years in purgatory for sundry faults, one of these being that on his death-bed he allowed himself to receive too much attention from his sister, "in whose guest-house he died." Other faults ascribed to him are that he was irritable, that he was wanting in submission to his superiors, and that he extolled too highly the " Friends of God," while towards others he was harsh. According to the legend already referred to, the lay " Friend of God," to whom he had owed his conversion, was with him again at his death-bed, and received from " the Master " the notes of his conversion, to be published after his death, describing him as " the Master," without any other name.

I have failed to obtain any portrait of Tauler, and I am doubtful whether any vera effigies of him exists. But I have heard of a conventional xxiv INTRODUCTION likeness, in which he is represented in the Dominican habit, holding in his left hand the Holy Bible, stamped with the Agnus Dei, while he points to it with his right. On his breast are the letters I H S and beneath them a T, an allusion perhaps to his name or to his preaching of the Cross.

NOTES ON TAULER'S TEACHING

Only to Tauler's Sermons must recourse be had to ascertain his teaching ; and even of these, as has been noted, a critical edition is desirable. The other works once attributed to him, and printed as his in the Latin version of Surius, are now accounted doubtful, if not certainly spurious. These works are : — (i) " The Following of the Poor Life of Christ " ; (2) " Exercises on the Life and Passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ" ; and (3) "Divine Institutions," also called "The Marrow of the Soul." All these are spiritual works of high value, and they deserve a place in any library of devotion ; but, as attributed to Tauler, they are not authentic. Such at least is the present verdict of the critics.

Judged then solely by his Sermons, Tauler is described by Von Loe, his latest biographer, as "one of the foremost among the mediaeval German mystics and preachers, uniting the intellectual depth of Eckhart with the interior spirituality of Suso and the fervour of Berthold of Ratisbon." The first-named was mystical ; the last-named

INTRODUCTION xxv was practical ; Suso was both ; but he was rather a director than a preacher. Tauler also was both, and, like Berthold, he preached for his times. Herder criticises him, saying that to have read two of his sermons is to have read them all ; but this is hardly a verdict to be accepted ; for his method varies largely, and the Sermon numbered xi. in this volume, for the most part so dull and in places barely intelligible, would strike a critic as not the work of the same author as the Sermon numbered xv. which the German editors have described as " a most precious and thoughtful exhortation," and perhaps the best example of Tauler's method. Sometimes more over he expounds a text like a homilist ; some times his text is barely referred to, and becomes a mere peg on which to hang a discourse on a subject of which he was full. No doubt there are readers to whom his allegorical interpretation of Scripture will be distasteful. Kingsley admits that it is "fantastic and arbitrary"; and the method is, of course, one that can easily be abused, especially when the interpretation of numbers is in question. But it has its justification, both in the fact that it is in accordance with Christian tradition — it is found in St Paul, in the early Fathers (as Keble's Tract Ixxxix. made abundantly clear), and in the offices of the Church, whether those for the choir or those for the altar, and traces of it are left in the Anglican Prayer-Book — and also in the experience of sympathetic souls, who find light and consolation in its use. But Tauler's mysticism (of xxvi INTRODUCTION which more is said below) by no means exhausted itself in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. To him, as to Keble and to Kingsley, the book of Nature was full of parables of things spiritual ; and, beyond that again, he clearly enjoyed (for he was no hypocrite) an intuition of things divine, wherein he found more light and certitude than in mere submission to the dogmatic magisterium of the Church.

Further, as to his manner, he is eager and earnest in his presentation of his subject ; he uses homely illustrations from daily life, yet without loss of dignity, and when he disparages, as he often does, " outward works," he is saying nothing against the performance of the duties, even the humblest, of ordinary life ; he is merely protesting against reliance on ecclesiastical routine, such as fasting, self-discipline, long prayers, and such-like ; and this protest is of course quite compatible with Catholic orthodoxy ; nor is it unnecessary for these times any more than for his own. But the manner of his sermons, as they have come down to us, is sometimes hard and even menacing ; and readers may not always find it easy to reconcile his frequent use of the words " dear children " with such an apparent lack of tenderness and sympathy. But, likely enough, this defect of manner was less noticeable in the discourses as delivered, than it is in the reports as now read.

Readers will also find it necessary to bear in mind that the mystical standpoint in religion does not by itself free a man from contemporary

INTRODUCTION xxvii views and prepossessions. The mystic is of his own age and race ; and it is amply evident that the articles of Tauler's creed were just those of any other Catholic believer of his time. There is throughout a spiritual element in his teaching ; but it does not exclude the use of what we should now account popular and conventional language about the fall of man, the pains of hell, and so forth. True, he says in one place, what indeed any Catholic preacher may say, that the chief pain of hell is the consciousness of being excluded from the Presence of God ; but he does not go on to suggest, as a spiritually-minded teacher might now, that all other language about the pains of hell, "the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched," is merely figurative of that one pain, and that such language was and is necessary to bring home to men, — to all men in different degrees, — the exceeding greatness of that pain or penalty, as it will hereafter be realised. He is liberal indeed in extending to the spiritually-minded heathen a sufficient knowledge of things divine. He holds that in the "inner ground"1 Plato and Proclus appre hended the Holy Trinity ; he thinks that in Plato can be found the whole meaning of the opening verses of St John's Gospel, though in veiled words. He teaches that a king, remain ing such, may yet rise to the height of " interior poverty," if there is nothing that he is not ready cheerfully to resign to God's Fatherly love. He extols the " evangelical counsels " ; but teaches 1 See the note on this word Grand, on p. 94.

xxviii INTRODUCTION also that the highest perfection is attainable by a married cobbler working to maintain his family. His doctrine of Purgatory does not differ from that usually held by Catholics ; but he regards it more as a place for the purging away of self-will than for the expiation of sin. In his sermon for the second Sunday in Lent there is a passage somewhat in disparagement of the invocation of Saints. A good soul, he says, once prayed to the Saints ; but they were so lost in God that they did not heed her. Then she betook herself humbly to God direct, and straightway she was lifted far above all media into the loving abyss of the Godhead. But perhaps he comes nearest to the Protestant position in his language about the "Friends of God." They are, he teaches, the true pillars of the Church, and without them the world could not stand. In his sermon for Lcetare Sunday he bids his hearers "beg the dear Friends of God to help them [in the way of perfection^], and to attach themselves simply and solely to God and to his chosen Friends." And there is a similar passage in the sermon for All Saints (see pp. 218-222, and cf. pp. 93 and 174). But, in his teaching, the " Friends of God " do not form, as they would have formed for the later Puritans, " the Church invisible " ; they constitute rather a second visible Church, to which the hierarchical Church is in some respects inferior. Some thirty years after Tauler's death the Inquisition at Cologne condemned as heretical certain proposi tions of Martin of Mayence ; one of which was

INTRODUCTION xxix that these "Friends of God" (who were lay men) understood the Gospel better than some of the Apostles, even better than St Paul ; and another was that submission to their teaching was necessary to perfection. But Tauler never went so far as this.

It may be added that, from the modern Christian social point of view, Tauler's limita tions are obvious. True, that in his sermon for Septuagesima he exhorts his hearers to use "natural gifts" for God. But his conception of " nature " is a very narrow one. Rightly it should include, besides those natural gifts which constitute personal character, such social virtues as patriotism, love for the community and for the family, a desire to master the earth and to make it the seat of a well-ordered Christian society, a realisation of the Kingdom of God on earth. But Tauler manifests no conception of anything of this. For the social elevation of mankind, here and now, he has nothing whatever to say.

Nevertheless, whatever were our author's limitations, Preger's judgment on the value of Tauler's sermons is one to command general assent: — "Their strength lies in the fact that Tauler knew how to put into them his whole heart, the fulness of his moral being. So utterly and completely is he penetrated by love of God and of Christ, so happily is the sublime and un worldly zeal of the orator blended with gentleness and freedom, that he masters the will unawares, and lays the heart open to the dexxx INTRODUCTION mands he makes upon it. ... His sermons will never cease to hold their place among the most perfect examples of pure German speech, of fervid German faith, and of German spirituality in all its depths."

IV TAULER AND MYSTICISM

It may be convenient to some of those into whose hands this little volume will come, if a brief account is here given of that " Mysticism " to which repeated reference has been made, and to which reference must be made, when the significance of Tauler's teaching is under consideration. Although the subject is now much better understood than it was in 1856, when Robert Vaughan published his " Hours with the Mystics," a notable book, queerly put together, interesting in its facts, but irritating in its manner, and one that was sympathetically reviewed by Kingsley in " Eraser's Magazine," l there is still need to point out what mystics are not, more perhaps than what they are. Mystics are not dreamers ; they are not fanatics ; they are not fools ; they are not a sect ; and mysticism is not a religion. As a rule, mystics are so termed by others ; they do not use the term of themselves.

1 The review was reprinted in Kingsley's "Miscel lanies," Vol. I.; and with it should be read his Prefaces to Miss Winkworth's edition of the Theologia Germanica (1854, and now reprinted in the "Golden Treasury" series) and of Tauler (1857).

INTRODUCTION xxxi

But thousands and millions of Christian believers have been and are mystics, without themselves knowing the word. In fact, as Dr Bigg says, "mysticism is an element in all religion that is not mere formalism " ; and it is confined to no one form of Christianity. A Carthusian hermit, prostrate on the floor of his cell in meditation, may or may not be a mystic ; but so may also be a grocer's assistant who occasionally attends a Methodist chapel. When Cardinal Newman taught that in the act of faith the conclusion is more certain than the premises, he (perhaps inadvertently) proclaimed himself a mystic ; and so, I think, did Ritschl, in spite of himself, when he affirmed the certitude of the " value-judgment " by which a man lays hold on the historic Christ ; for mysticism is such a way of apprehending spiritual truth ; it is a way that is neither purely intellectual, nor purely emotional ; but one that employs, in one act, all the powers of a man's soul. The mystical attitude towards truth is thus in harmony with Matthew Arnold's lines : —

" Affections, Instincts, Principles and Powers, Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control — So men, unravelling God's harmonious whole, Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours. Vain labour ! Deep and hroad, where none may see, Spring the foundations of that shadowy throne, Where man's One Nature, queen-like, sits alone, Centred in a majestic unity."

It is true that mysticism has to do with mystery ; and that is why the term is popularly xxxii INTRODUCTION held in disrepute. But the mysteries with which mysticism chiefly has to do are neither numerous nor fantastic : they are God, and the Soul, and Revelation ; the last being the making known of the One to the other : and, beyond this, Christian mysticism views the Eternal as ap proached through Jesus Christ, the Door ; a few texts from St Paul and St John sufficing to state the whole case. Individual mystical writers have, no doubt, gone far beyond this, and have said extravagant things ; but the essence of the whole lies herein ; and (again to quote Dr Bigg), " the Church can never get rid of the mystic spirit ; nor should she attempt to do so, for it is, in fact, her life. It is another name for conscience, for freedom, for the rights of the individual soul, for the grace and privilege of direct access to the Redeemer, for the presence of the Divine Spirit in the heart." l

And further, -most people are now familiar with the distinction between the dreamy, un practical mysticism of the East and the vigorous variety of the same mode of thought in the West. In both cases it produces the same consciousness of certitude and of interior peace; but in the one case that tends to mere contemplation and self-introspection, while in the other it inspires a Tauler or a Cromwell or a Coleridge ; and from the latter's mysticism, movements that are vigorous to-day have derived their spiritual energy, though but few of those whom the movements affect may be aware of the fact. 1 " Unity in Diversity," p. 93.

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

It is also necessary to distinguish between mysticism as a way of holding spiritual truth, and mysticism as an interpretation, sometimes fantastic, of the world and of man ; and again between this interpretation and the mystical interpretation of Scripture, already referred to, which is apt, indeed, to allegorise wantonly, though its fancies are almost always of service in securing a broader and more edifying interpretation for texts which, if regarded as mere history or legend, would lack religious significance. The evolution of these other aspects of the subject from that first mysticism, which is the apprehension of spiritual things by the soul, a few moments reflection will make clear. The mystic, who sees God in all things and all things in God, recognises more in nature than mere natural phenomena, and more in the Word of God than its first literal significance. To him every thing, every event, every person, is a vision from the Unseen, a voice from the Inaudible. He lives in a world of parables, full of spiritual significance ; and, while for him there is a Real Presence everywhere, he finds it also most truly and effectively where it is most clearly discerned by faith. Nothing that might be accounted magical is required to produce it, for it is there and everywhere already. So too, in his interpretation of the Book, which contains, with whatever admixture, the fullest record of that which has been revealed to man as necessary for the salvation of his soul, he sees more than the mere student of the letter. In God's dealings xxxiv INTRODUCTION with man from first to last he perceives a harmony that implies a foreshadowing of the last in the first, of the whole in the part ; and in this way he can find an interpretation of spiritual value even in the thoughts of good men, who have pictured to themselves, inaccurately, it may be, as to matters of fact, God's earlier work in the creation of the world and of man. And, thus broadly understood, mysticism is now " in the air," and is becoming recognised as a force that makes for unity among Christians, who differ somewhat as to dogma, and more as to their methods of its external expression. Happily however, its interior and reserved character will always hinder mysticism from being degraded, as external religion can be and is, to the position of a mere badge or cry of an ecclesiastical party.1

Not to know anything about mysticism is, according to Professor Royce, not to know anything about a large part of human nature ; for mysticism is the philosophy of experience ; the mystics are the only thorough -going empiricists in the whole history of philosophy ; and the realm of experience is that which is decisive of truth. A complete history of mysticism would cover a very large field in the history of the world ; and that not only of the world

1 Those who are interested in this subject may be referred to Bigg's "Christian Platonists of Alexandria1' Ti886), and to Inge's Bampton Lectures on - Christian Mysticism" (1899), as also to Professor Royce's GifFord Lectures on "The World and the Individual," whence are taken some of the thoughts and phrases in the paragraphs which follow.

INTRODUCTION xxxv of thought ; for, in the West at any rate, the mystics have repeatedly built the platform on which great dramas have been played ; and in this sense (but in this sense only) Tauler and the " Friends of God " were " precursors of the Reformation," much as the Puritans were the precursors of the modern Revolution. It may be quite possible to show that Tauler was an orthodox Catholic friar, and that his obedience to the Church was throughout irreproachable ; but, none the less, his mystical doctrine of the inner and the outer, of the letter and the spirit, tended irresistibly towards the over throw of Catholicism, so far as in his day it consisted in mere formalism and obedience to external rule. The same doctrine in the teaching of St Paul made short work of the Jewish Law ; and again in our own day (for there are symptoms of its revival) it will either destroy or will newly inspire modern Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, which, without the mystic spirit, must inevitably degenerate into mere Byzantinism, the religion of credulity and of ceremonial routine.

The earliest home of mysticism was in the East ; but before the Christian era it had passed over into Europe, or had an independent origin there. So at least is the alternative stated by Professor Royce. But its independent origin in the West, in the mystical teaching of Jesus Christ, as we recognise it in the language used by St Paul and St John, must surely be acknowledged as beyond question, save by those xxxvi INTRODUCTION who hold that the Prophet of Nazareth acquired mystical doctrines in the farther East, perhaps by residence there; and of this there is at present absolutely no evidence that can be termed historical. According to Professor Seth, it is a mode of thought or of feeling, from its very nature insusceptible of exact definition, in which reliance is placed on spiritual intuition or illumination, believed to transcend the ordinary powers of the human understanding. In this sense Plato (whom Eckhart quaintly describes as "the great Parson " — der grosse Pfaffe), was a mystic. It is the endeavour of the human soul (in its own judgment successful) to grasp the Divine Essence, or the ultimate Reality of things, and to enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with the Highest. Thus, mystical theology is that knowledge of God and of things divine, which is derived, not from observation or from argument, but from conscious spiritual experience ; and, being thus based, it possesses, for the individual who holds it, an irrefragable certainty.

From Plato and from Aristotle's account of God's inner life, the Greek mysticism, as a stream distinct from the mysticism of the New Testament (i.e. of St Paul, and of the writings attributed to St John), passed into Plotinus, and so, through Philo and the neo-Platonists, it became an element in Christian theology ; and the writer known as " pseudo-Dionysius " was its chief prophet in the early Church. It would take long to trace, so far as it can

INTRODUCTION xxxvii be traced, the filiation of the doctrine from the age of the neo-PJatonists to the fourteenth century ; and it must suffice to say that there existed in Tauler's day at least four Latin versions of the works of Dionysius, that of Scotus Erigena being the one with which he was most likely to be familiar. Dionysius was also commented on by the greatest scholastics, incidentally even by St Thomas Aquinas, who sought to deal justly with the mystics without endangering ortho doxy. Eckhart, whose disciple Tauler in some sense was, had been trained in the school of St Thomas ; but he gradually emancipated himself from the scholastic yoke ; and he is commonly reckoned the spiritual ancestor of Kant and Hegel. Indeed, in other ways and by a more direct descent, mysticism at this day largely affects multitudes to whom its very name is unknown. The favourite devotional books of all the churches, and many of our most popular hymns, are essentially mystical. It has been defined above as philosophical empiricism ; but it is more than that, and much more than mere sentimentality. Again to quote Professor Royce: — "It is the conception of men whose piety has been won after long conflict, whose thoughts have been dissected by a very keen inner scepticism, whose single-minded devotion to an abstraction has resulted from a vast experience of painful complications of life. . . . It has been the ferment of the faiths, the fore runner of spiritual liberty, the inaccessible refuge of the nobler heretics, the inspirer, through d xxxviii INTRODUCTION poetry, of countless youth who know no meta physics, the teacher, through the devotional books, of the despairing, the comforter of those who are weary of finitude ; it has determined directly or indirectly, more than half of the technical theology of the Church/' l

With the above eloquent passage, written only the other day, may be compared Kingsley's lament, written in 1856, that mysticism was a form of thought and feeling then all but extinct in England. The Anglican divines, he said, looked on it with utter disfavour ; they used the word always as a term of reproach ; and they interpreted the mystical expressions in the Prayer-book (chiefly to be found in the collects) in accordance with the philosophy of Locke, being ignorant that these collects were really the work of Platonist mystics. But meanwhile, he pointed out, it was the mysticism of Coleridge "the fakir of Highgate," that had originated both the Oxford Movement and Emersonian free-thought ; while Carlyle, "the only contemporary mystic of any real genius," was exercising more practical influence, and was infusing more vigorous life into the minds of thousands of men and women, than all the other teachers of England put together. If he had also mentioned Words worth, Tennyson, Browning and Ruskin, he would have made still clearer how immense has been the power of our latter-day mysticism ; while the names of Neale and of Keble, of Faber i « The World and the Individual," pp. 8r, 85.

INTRODUCTION xxxix and of Newman, can speak for the same potent influence among those who were ecclesiastics by profession.

This perhaps may suffice, if any need there was, to secure for those who read Tauler's sermons now for the first time, sympathy with him instead of suspicion on account of his reputation as a mystic. There is no need to follow him when he becomes subtle or extravagant ; but of his generally broad and spiritual teaching no one can doubt the wholesome influence. Ritschl, in his zeal for his new rational Lutheranism, is bitter against the mystics ; yet even he admits that Tauler did good service in inculcating interior as compared with mere ceremonial religion, and in lessening the great mediaeval distinction between clergy and laity. There was in Tauler's day a great need for a revival of the religion of the heart — when is there not such a need ? — but it was also necessary that the established methods of religion should be respected and remain intact ; for there existed no other social bond equally fitted to hold men together. And this was the secret of Tauler's influence. He was able to fill the old bottles with new wine from an ancient vineyard without bursting them. Recent historical criticism may have destroyed some of the romance with which his name was associated. But if, as it now appears — and Harnack as well as Ritschl agree with Denifle in this — he was not a " Reformer before the Reformation," and was not the subject of a singular conversion in the midst of his successful xl INTRODUCTION career as preacher, he still remains, and will always remain, a striking and venerable figure in the mediaeval Church, a reformer at any rate of practical abuses, and a prophet of righteousness in days that were corrupt as well as stormy.

THE VERSIONS OF TAULER'S SERMONS

That the editors and translators of Tauler have also been perforce to some extent his in terpreters, may conveniently be illustrated by the following passage from his first Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter, on the words Expedit vobis ut ego tyu/am, etc. I give the passage, first as it stands in the archaic German of the original edition (1498); then in the Latin version of Surius (1548); then in the modernised German of Hamberger's edition (1872); then in the French translation of Sainte-Foi (1855); and finally in the English translation of Arch deacon Hare, in his notes to " The Mission of the Comforter," reproduced in Miss Winkworth's volume (1857).

i.

In the edition of 1498 ; Sermon XX. fol. 60.

" Kinder yr sollet nicht fragen nach grossen hoen Kunsten. dan ghet einfeldiglichenn in eweren grunt inwendig. un Jernet euch selber erkennfc. im geist un in natur. Und fraget nicht nach der verborgeheit gotes. von seinenn aussflussen un einfliessen un dem icht in dem nicht

INTRODUCTION xli un funcke der sele in der istikeit. Wa yf<; iesus gesprochen hat Euch ist nicht zu wissen vo der heimlikeit gotes un darub so solle wir halde einen ware ganzen einfeldigen glaube in einem got in dreyfeldikeit der Pson un nicht manigfeldigliche sundern einfeldiglichen und leuterliche."

2. From the Latin Version of S units (1548).

" Et vos, charissimi, non ad subtilium sublimiumque artium et scientiarum cognitionem aspiretis : sed in ipsum interiorem fundum vestrum simpliciter ingredientes, illic vosipsos cognoscre discite : nihil vobis magnopere curse sit scire secreta Dei, influxus et effluxus illius, de esse et non esse, et quid sit animae scintilla in sua existentia. Non vobis commissum est scire arcana Dei. Nihil plane utilius est quam ut veram integram et simplicem fidem de uno Deo in personarum Trinitate, non multipliciter sed simpliciter et pure retineamus."

3-

From Hatnbtrger' s edition, " in die jefeige Schriftsprache ubertragen " (1872).

" Kinder, ihr sollet nicht fragen nach hohen grossen Kiinsten. Gehet einfaltig in euern Grund inwendig, und lernet euch selber erkennen in Geist und in Natur, und fraget nicht nach der Verborgenheit Gottes, von seinem Ausfliessen, und Einfliessen, und von dem Icht [Etwas] in xlii INTRODUCTION dem Nicht [NichtsJ, und von dem Funken der Seele in der Istigkeit [dem Wesen der Seele in ihrem Seyn] : denn Christus hat gesprochen : " Euch ist nicht noth zu wissen von der Heimlichkeit Gottes." Darum sollen wir halten dem wahren, ganzen, einfaltigen Glauben, an den einem Gott, in Dreifaltigkeit der Person, und nicht mannigfaltiglich [nicht mit verwirrender Spitzfindigkeit]], sondern einfaltiglich."

4- From the French translation of Saint e-Fo'i (1855).

" II ne s'agit point, mes enfants, d'affecter de grands airs. Entrez simplement dans votre fond ; apprenez a vous connaitre tels que vous etes, et spirituellement et naturellement : ne cherchez point a connaitre les secrets de Dieu, tels que le flux et le reflux de 1'etre au non-etre, Tessence de 1'ame. Car le Christ a dit que vous n'avez pas besoin de connaitre les secrets de Dieu. Ayons une foi simple, vraie et entiere en un seul Dieu en trois personnes, en un Dieu parfaitement simple, exempt de toute multiplicite."

From Archdeacon Hare's " Mission of the Comforter" apud IVinkworth (1857).

" Children, ye shall not seek after great science. Simply enter into your own inward principle, and learn to know what you yourselves are, spiritually and naturally, and do not dive

INTRODUCTION xliii into the secret things of God, asking questions about the efflux and reflux of the Aught into the Naught, or the essence of the soul's spark ; for Christ has said : * It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power/ Therefore, let us maintain a true, entire, simple faith in one God in a Trinity of Persons, and yet not as manifold but as one and simple."

THE INNER WAY